Whale Warehouse

Blue whales are the largest animals known to have lived on earth, and few of us will ever have a chance to get close to them.

To learn a litte more about the secret life of whales, this week's SoCal Rewind takes us back to a 1996 conversation with the late John Heyning, whale expert and deputy director at the L.A. County Natural History Museum. Heyning was in charge of the second largest collection of marine mammals in the world, housed at the Museum's Marine Mammal Laboratory in Vernon.

He gives us a look under the skin of a blue whale — and muses about the source of our fascination with the world's largest mammal.

The lab is not open to the public, but you can see a similar skeleton at the Natural History Museum exhibit Fin Whale Passage.

SoCal Rewind is an on-going series bringing you past reports on the issues of today. By drawing on KCET's extensive archive of Southern California news, culture and public affairs, we'll seek to inform current events by providing a little historical perspective, and maybe answer the question: Is there anything new under the SoCal sun?

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